Vatican Says Won't 'Lower Its Guard' after Raft of Priest Sex Abuse Cases

Voice of Russia
January 19, 2014

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_19/Vatican-says-wont-lower-its-guard-after-raft-of-priest-sex-abuse-cases-2196/


The "most terrible" cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have come to light, but the Church should not lower its guard, said the Vatican's former sex crimes prosecutor in comments published Sunday.

Malta Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna told the Sunday Times of Malta that he expected the number of priests banned from the clergy on paedophile charges to stabilize at around 100 per year, after a peak of 384 cases in 2011-12.

"It's not the time for complacency, but time to be aware and proactive. The innocence of children is non-negotiable," said Scicluna, who until 2012 worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's disciplinary watchdog.

He said the spike in defrocking cases recorded in 2011-12 was due to a backlog of cases.

The figures were publicized after Thursday's hearing of the Holy See before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, in which Scicluna and another Vatican envoy were grilled about the long-running worldwide scandal of paedophile priests.

Scicluna said facing eight hours of questioning "was tough." He added: "There is worldwide recognition of the work churches do, but when you have some priests who do awful things, they create not only headlines, but huge concern."

The prelate said the hurt done to the victims still pained him.

"This is the most tragic wound; a wound inflicted on the Church. These are great wounds inflicted by those who should have been of service to the community," he said.

Pope Benedict XVI defrocked 400 priests over two years for molesting children - report

Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for molesting children. The statistics for 2011-12 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received.

The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting to help the Holy See defend itself before a UN committee this week in Geneva.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's UN ambassador in Geneva, referred to just one of the statistics in the course of eight hours of oftentimes pointed criticism and questioning from the UN human rights committee.

The statistics were compiled from the Vatican's own annual reports about the activities of its various offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases. Although public, the annual reports are not readily available or sold outside Rome and are usually found in Vatican offices or Catholic university libraries.

There is a remarkable evolution in the Holy See's in-house procedures to discipline pedophiles since 2001, when the Vatican ordered bishops to send cases of all credibly accused priests to Rome for review.

Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took action after determining that bishops around the world weren't following church law to put accused clerics on trial in church tribunals. Bishops routinely moved problem priests from parish to parish rather than subject them to canonical trials - or turn them into police.

For centuries, the church has had its own in-house procedures to deal with priests who sexually abuse children. One of the chief accusations from victims is that bishops put the church's own procedures ahead of civil law enforcement by often suggesting victims not go to police and keep accusations quiet while they are dealt with internally.

The maximum penalty for a priest convicted by a church tribunal is essentially losing his job: being defrocked, or removed from the clerical state. There are no jail terms and nothing to prevent an offender from raping again.

According to the 2001 norms Ratzinger pushed through, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reviews each case sent to Rome and then instructs bishops how to proceed, either by launching an administrative process against the priest if the evidence is overwhelming or a church trial. At every step of the way the priest is allowed to defend himself.

The Congregation started reporting numbers only in 2005, which is where Tomasi's spreadsheet starts off. UN officials said Friday that the committee has not received the document.